POLL: Histories greatest thief.

[blind ear]

Is the web of deciet that these types of organizations foster what brings about the cyclic return of "Dark Ages" ?

Just something to think about.

eddiegjr

[MGMorden]

What has Bill Gates done wrong to be called a thief?

The man is rich - INSANELY rich, but he got that way through private enterprise and business.  To be blunt, Bill Gates is pretty much the shining example of Capitalism at work.  The American dream and all that.  Capitalism is the opposite of Communism - it's simply not a good way to show your support if the man who makes the most out of the Capitalist system is called a thief for doing so.

The stock market in much the same.

World's greatest thief?  If we're allowed to name organizations or institutions as the precedent has been set, then I'd have to say the slave trade.  Possibly the early settlers of the US who basically took the whole country from the native inhabitants.  

[Dixie Dude]

TM7, about 25% of the American people have money in their 401k's tied to the stock market.  This is not counting IRA investment accounts for retirement.  If I had a company but needed money for expansion, I could go public and sell stock in my company for expansion and growth to make more money in what I produce or do.  Nothing wrong with that.  Ford, Microsoft, and scads of other companies started as solely owned companies, but grew large by selling shares and allowing people to be part owners and reap the benefits of an expanding company.  Stocks on average over the past 100 years have yielded about a 10-12% return on investment including the Great Depression and various recessions.  One of the problems now is computer trading and day trading, not long term trading.  Companies need Capital for growth and expansion, so they raise Capital by selling stock, thus Capitalism.  Bad mouthing the stock market and Capitalism sounds communist to me.  Another problem is government rules and regulations.  Sometimes they cause more trouble than solve.  I think shorts should be outlawed.  You buy a stock short thinking it is going down in value, and you sell low and they pay you the difference.  Soros made most of his money on shorts.  He buys high shorts, then manipulates the market to bring the stock down so he can sell.  My 401k and my wifes retirement accounts are tied to the stock market.  We can't retire early until they go back up. 

Now the Federal Reserve is another problem and it should be audited and/or absolved and the US Treasury go back to printing money backed by gold or silver or other precious metal.  It will never go to zero and will be very stable like it was for over 100 years before the Federal Reserve was started. 

[nova71]

I think 0bama should be on the list

[SwampThing762]

obama should be the TOP NAME on the list.

[Junior1942]

...is the Republican Party.  It has somehow convinced working class Americans to support the party of big business and billionaires.

[Dixie Dude]

Junior you better check your records.  The Democratic party gets far more money from big business and billionaires than the Republicans.  Soros is a die hard liberal billionaire and gives millions to liberal causes and politicians.  The dems have pushed that lie for years.  It used to be the case back in the late 1800's but the parties have reversed in the last 100 years.  Records indicate that the Republicans get far more small donations from small business and individuals that the Dems.  Dems get a lot of Union money, Gay rights money, environmentalists money.  The GE CEO (one of the largest corporations in the world) supported Obama, and owns NBC and MSNBC.  Apple, Microsoft, Google, and most software giants supported Dems.  Oil and coal companies are small fry compared to the multitude of New Corporation money going to Dems.  Most Globalists support Dems.  The Dems just want more people dependent on the government so they can be controlled.   Obama is one of the biggest LIARS ever to occupy the White House.  He still don't get the TEA party and what they want....less big government, less nanny state, just get out of our lives and leave us alone.   

[nova71]

Thanks DD, I couldn't have said it better 

[lakota]

...is the Republican Party.  It has somehow convinced working class Americans to support the party of big business and billionaires.

Do you really buy into that liberal talking point? The democrat party is the real party of elitist snobs.http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/08/31/top-ten-wealthiest-members-congress

It seems 7 of the top ten richest members of congress are liberals. Why dont they spread that wealth around? because to quote the great messiah "when you spread the wealth it's good for everybody!" They want to redistribute wealth so how about they start by redistributing their own wealth? Oh but thats right socialism is for the people not the socialist. How can you even pretend to know what goes on out in the real world when your net worth approaches 190 million dollars? So much for the "party of the people"

[Junior1942]

Know any big oil CEO Democrats?   I'll bet there's 100 filthy rich Republicans for every filthy rich Democrat.   It's gonna be interesting come 2012 when the tea party Rebublicans (typo but I like it!) start kicking the mommas and grandmas of lower and middle class Rebublicans out of hospitals and nursing homes.  It's coming!

And, no, I don't have anything against filthy rich people of any party.

[Dixie Dude]

Junior, it's the other way around now.  Where have you been under rock?  There are far more filthy rich dems than reps.  We have 200 million cars in the US and we need oil, we need gasoline.  Sorry but that is the way it is.  We need to drill our own so we don't have to import.  We need to open up more in Alaska, so we don't have to import.  Every dollar spent goes around 7 times before it gets back to you. (Economics 101).  If it goes overseas, there is no guarentee it will come back here.  If we drill our own, it is spent here producing jobs here and being spent here stimulating the economy here.  Government jobs don't make anything, and don't produce anything, don't grow anything.  Stimulus should be in the pockets of the American people (tax cuts).  They can spend the money to create the jobs.  People have tried to show you this, and named names.  The Rockafelas are Dems now, not Republicans.  Bill Gates, George Soros, Jobs, are all dems.  The old Republican wealthy are dead and their companies are now stockholder owned corporations.   Rich switched parties with FDR, Kennedy, Clinton, and Obama.  Most medium sized companies and Corporations are Republican, but they are not Globalist Democrat Corporations like GE, Microsoft, etc.  Oh, and by the way, BP gave Obama and the Dems a ton of money last election.  Hmmmm.  Wake Up.  TEA Party Republicans, Libertarians, and Constitutionalists are the only people listening to the REAL middle class.  You can stay on the perpetual Democrat welfare, food stamp, government health care plantation if you want, but I want to be left alone and independent....most here do.  

[teamnelson]

Given the Fed was around before the 2008 election, Obama is just a passing fancy. Everybody knows you build wealth over time, but you can rack up a lot of debt in a hurry! Smart thief takes the long road ... hence I voted for the Fed.

[Tommyt]

Histories greatest thief.

Bernard Madoff
Enron
 
Without Do

Tommyt

[blind ear]

What Qualifies Bill Gates as a thief.

In 2003, 2004 or 5 AOl had a class action suit brought against them for fraudulent billing. They had thier registration for service set up to double enrole the customer if the customer double clicked the registration. This double billing didn't show up until a customer tried to stop the AOl service. The customer thought he quit the service but he kept getting billed. AOL would not inform the customer of the secound account until the customer went into the fraud fileing process, then AOl would tell the customer he had another account, a bill that didn't surface until the customer tried to disenguage the service. AOL lost the case.

a PARALLEL is MS Vista and Windows 7. Windows Vista is so full of holes they can't make it work. They came out with Seven. AT&T and other access providers are selling monthly or large one time fees to service the new windows systems. The holes in the new system allow the settings of the personal computer to be reset, without the owners consent, to where the computer has to be "fixed" to operate. There is an "insider trader" relationship going on between the carriers and Microsoft.

Microsoft has a history of built in obsolesence and systems full of holes. Before they get a system perfected they come out with a new system that carries more advertiseing useing YOUR memory capacity and plenty of holes in the operateing system that hackers can develope new applications for, useing your computer capacity, to increase thier "marketing/advertiseing" capacity and it is not "compatable with your old system and can't be made so.

Obsolence is the key to thier "marketing" strategy and we are paying the larger price for it. The industry has found a way to milk us for more and more rather than build a product that functions. The computer should be a just standard appliance rather than the suck hole for money that it is. The computer and the internet are nothing more than a telephone system with the ability to make large numbers of instant connections useing switchers and large memories.

If it weren't for MONOPOLY laws brought aboout by past depressions, Microsoft's reaming of us would be much worse than it is. This is demonstrated by the monopoly suits that they have lost in the US, Europe , Asia and China.

Gates is scamming us. eddiegjr

[MGMorden]

What Qualifies Bill Gates as a thief.

a PARALLEL is MS Vista and Windows 7. Windows Vista is so full of holes they can't make it work. They came out with Seven. AT&T and other access providers are selling monthly or large one time fees to service the new windows systems. The holes in the new system allow the settings of the personal computer to be reset to where the computer has to be "fixed" to operate. There is an "insider trader" relationship going on between the carriers and Microsoft.

Microsoft has a history of built in obsolesence and systems full of holes. Before they get a system perfected they come out with a new system that carries more advertiseing useing YOUR memory capacity and plenty of holes in the operateing system that hackers can develope new applications for, useing your computer capacity, to increase thier "marketing/advertiseing" capacity.

Obsolence is the key to thier "marketing" strategy and we are paying the larger price for it. The industry has found a way to milk us for more and more rather than build a product that functions. The computer should be a standard appliance rather than the suck hole for money that it is. The computer and the internet is nothing more than a telephone system with the ability to make large numbers of instant connections useing switchers and large memories.

If it weren't for MONOPOLY laws brought aboout by past depressions, Microsoft's reaming of us would be much worse than it is. This is demonstrated by the monopoly suits that they have lost in the US, Europe , Asia and China.

Gates is scamming us. eddiegjr

Couple of things wrong with your statements.  For one, if you believe Microsoft intentionally made Vista a turd then your'e incredibly naive.  For one, most people didn't ever upgrade to Vista - they stuck with XP.  THAT cost Microsoft a huge amount of money in and of itself.  They sunk tons of cash into development of a new OS that pretty much flopped.  Computer makers were having to offer "downgrade" options on new systems for customers to choose XP instead of Vista.  Of course they rushed out Windows 7 to replace it as otherwise their revenue stream was going to dry up.

Yes, they have been convicted of monopolistic practices, but those laws are more of that evil government regulation the hardcore right wingers tend to hate so much .  Most of their convictions there have also been fairly specific in nature - namely, tying Internet Explorer into the operating system.  By doing so they effectively killed Netscape, which in the early days in of the internet dominated the browser market.  Microsoft's influence is waning though.   Google, RIM, and Apple are literally destroying them in the mobile market.  Microsoft can't seem to design a phone OS to save it's life (literally, as market trends indicate that the future of computing lies in handheld mobile devices).  Even on the desktop end MacOS is gaining market share, and Internet Explorer usage has finally dipped below 50% of the market (with Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome taking up most of the slack). 

Trust me, Microsoft is on the downward spiral.  As to Bill Gates though, it's important to note that he himself has had a much reduced role in the internal dealings of Microsoft since he stepped down as CEO back in 2000 (handing over the position to Steve Balmer).  Most of his current worth is based on stocks within the company.

Either way though, I can honestly say that the "Microsoft tax" is a completely optional thing for anyone who wishes to avoid it.  I'm currently typing this on Google Chrome running on an Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" system.  I run no Microsoft software whatsoever on my system.  Not only is my system much (MUCH) more stable and secure, I also get all my software for free (and legally too - Ubuntu Linux and virtually all software is released under the GPL license, and is completely free to download and use).

[blind ear]

MGMorden, your use of the system that you use seems  to reinforce my statements reguarding Microsoft and it could well be the type tool that will make the internet , and all the related tech systems, another utility rather than a stock  market toy. I hope so. eddiegjr

[The Hermit]

I'd like to nominate George Soros.

[Junior1942]

Complaining about Bill Gates while using a medium he made possible is like complaining about farmers with a mouth full of food.

[blind ear]

Gates didn't make it possible, he just expolited someone else's ideas and created a temporary monopoly situation that is begenning to dissolve. The farm system is a whole other set of welfare spending. eddiegjr

[MGMorden]

Complaining about Bill Gates while using a medium he made possible is like complaining about farmers with a mouth full of food.

Microsoft was very late to jump on the internet bandwagon.  They almost missed the boat.  They certainly didn't make it possible. Unix systems were serving the internet then, and for the most part they are serving it now.  When it comes to the workhorse iron that keeps this stuff running, Microsoft is consumer grade crap.  Nobody really trusts it for serious work.  As a matter of fact when Microsoft themselves first bought the Hotmail email service, it was running on FreeBSD (Unix) servers.  Microsoft attempted to move it to Windows 2000 servers.  The entire thing crashed within hours.  They eventually had to move it back to the FreeBSD servers for years before a Windows migration was possible.

[Junior1942]

Gates didn't make it possible, he just expolited someone else's ideas and created a temporary monopoly situation that is begenning to dissolve. The farm system is a whole other set of welfare spending. eddiegjr

Evidently you didn't use computers before MSDOS and then Windows.  Gates made computers easy to use.

[briarpatch]

MGMORDEN, your example of land acquisition is on the weak side. If you look at history there are groups that took more land than the early settlers in the US. The term (conquer) has been well used.
For all that point to the settlers as thieves. If you know they were wrong and took what did not belong to them I would expect you to give back what land you have to the rightful owners. I dont believe I will see many in that line.
The slave trade was practiced by the blacks in africa way before anyone here got involved. I would also argue it gave those brought here  and their ancestors the greatest opportunity of any people on Earth to advance and be what they wanted to be. It does not take a very large IQ to know which country any black would rather be in, here or africa.
They are not in their present condition because of the white slave trader but the so called black leaders who exploited them and destroyed their hopes and gave the world what we have today in the ghettos.  On your list, jesse jackson and bro. al sharpton should be near the top concerning slave trading thieves.
I will say the greatest thief in the history of the world would surly be satan.    

[powderman]

I will say the greatest thief in the history of the world would surly be satan.     
 
 
 
BRIARPATCH. True statement, and good post. I'm reminded daily  that satan is alive and well. POWDERMAN. 

[slim rem 7]

  truth.. fellow i used to know, thought the truth made no difference..to him it was what everybody thought was the truth that mattered..i disagreed but didn t push it..
 in the end, everyone is gonna have to look at truth while in front of the only judge that matters..
  only thing thats gonna matter is whether you accepted the attonement sacrifice or not..
 im gonna do a lot of squirming when in that time of judgement ,myself..
heck i already am dealing with the truth about myself,as ive lots of time to reflect on my life..i know the only way to forgiveness ..im very glad the price has already been paid for me..now to endure to the end in faith..may not be so easy..
yall have a great day .. god bless you an yours this season of thanksgiving an giving of gifts..slim
ps.. christmas is about celebrating  christ birth.. the ultimate gift giver.

[Junior1942]

........They are not in their present condition because of the white slave trader but the so called black leaders who exploited them and destroyed their hopes and gave the world what we have today in the ghettos.. ..

Way wrong. Mechanical cotton pickers and chemical weed killers "gave the world what we have today in the ghettos."  But the ghetto people have done pretty well, IMHO, because they were still virtual slaves until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Until the passage of that act, a ghetto person voted only if a white person said they could.  And don't say I don't know what I'm talking about because I witnessed it.  A ghetto person had to pass a "simple" Constitutional test.  Like, "What's the 12th word in the 13th amendment?"

[jimster]

...is the Republican Party.  It has somehow convinced working class Americans to support the party of big business and billionaires.

Of course the flip side to this is for the working class people to support the Dem party which supports the lazy takers of society, and try to get a job from the lazy worthless people.  Somehow I think I like the idea of supporting the busnesses and billionaires better.  I would suppose if you took the leftist ideas far enough, and simply "took" all the money and assets form all of these mean wealthy people and had them all be broke too...unemployement would probably be 95 %....gee, who would there be to blame then?
That darn Bill Gates is standing in the soup line along with the thousands he employed....the leftists would still not get it even with everyone out of work. They don't get any of it anyways...history is not good enough for them, they have to keep on tearing things down around them with their simple minded "we want some of that money those guys have" type of thinking, instead of finding a way to make their own. 

Busnesses and wealthy people are not your problem....wanting all their stuff is really the problem.  Now you have the top 5% of the wealthiest people paying close to half the taxes in this country...and it ain't good enough.  Go figure...and yet we keep blaming one party or the other....when in reality...it's just "us" that is the real problem.

[SwampThing762]

Junior1942,

Getting back to the healthcare issue, what party forced the Obamacare bill through both houses of Congresses, claimed "we have to pass it so we can know what's in it", gutted your Medicare benefits by reducing reimbursement, and by passage of the bill authorized the "death panels" that would determine what care senior citizens get for end of life treatment?  I will tell you.....the Democrats.   Oh, yes, Junior, the death panels are in the new law.    All I can say is, I hope you have a good Medicare supplement and life insurance policy.   You will need both policies.

ST762

[Junior1942]

Re: jimster.  I know hundreds if not thousands of people you would call "lefties" and I know none of them who think like you seem to believe they all think.

Re: ST762.  Your "death panels" have been going on since people have been going on.  It's meetings like my sister and I had with my dad's doctors during the last stages of his Alzheimer's.  The right wing spinners made it sound like Obama's health plan doctor/patient/family consultation portion was like Hitler's solution to Alzheimer's--a bullet.  I suggest you form your own conclusions and ignore right wing spin during the formations.  They don't have the common man's interest at heart.

[powderman]

junior. If bos plan is like Englands there will indeed be death panels who will decide who wil or will not be treated. In England I believe the magic number is 55 years old. These decisions will be made by folks NOT in the medical profession, not drs. POWDERMAN. 

[MGMorden]

Evidently you didn't use computers before MSDOS and then Windows.  Gates made computers easy to use.

Gates nor Microsoft developed MS-DOS.  They BOUGHT it from Seattle Computer Products who originally sold it as QDOS.  Even that aside, QDOS itself is highly modeled after the usage structure of the CP/M operating system by Digital Research Corporation.  Not to mention that during the hey-day of MS-DOS, before Windows came out, the best selling computer wasn't even the PC.  The most popular home computer at the time was the Commodore 64.

As to Windows?  It was a pretty poor knockoff of MacOS.  The entire idea for the GUI system was pretty much lifted from there.  Windows won pretty much only because it was available on any computer system, whereas MacOS was available on Macs only.  The higher availability of PC systems lead to higher competition, which in any good market leads to cheaper prices.  Back in the early days, the idea was that if you wanted a decent value, you got a PC.  If you wanted something easy to use, then you got a Mac.  

Gates is a good businessman, and he's made a lot of money over the years that I certainly don't begrudge him for, but it's naive to think he's some kind of revolutionary.